Robert Horton, Writing About Film

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About This Site

The Crop Duster has two goals. One is to organize links to my critical work: reviews written for The Herald (Everett, Washington) and Seattle Weekly; and public appearances and TV jobs. Selected past work for Film Comment and elsewhere is also linkified. You may also link to my website of 1980s reviews and learn more about my book on Frankenstein and my graphic novel, ROTTEN.

The second goal is to keep a daily record of films watched, annotated with brisk, brief comments. It's a slightly more advanced version of the movie list I kept, in Flair pen, thumbtacked next to my bed when I was twelve.

Links to my reviews published this week in the Herald and Seattle Weekly, and etc.

The Mummy. “This one is going in a lot of different directions at once.”

My Cousin Rachel. “Basically a chewy exercise in melodrama, but it’s also up to something interesting. The viewer is being set up for a test: Can we accurately read and interpret the clues of a movie, or will we be influenced by rumor, first impressions, and our own prejudices?”

Tonight, June 9, the talkers in Framing Pictures re-convene for a conversation at Scarecrow Video. As the FP Facebook page puts it, “Framing Pictures has heard the owls, and accept our mission to meditate on the quarter-century-later return of Twin Peaks. Additionally, we are delighted that the neglected Peckinpah beauty The Ballad of Cable Hogue is getting a Bluray release, and Nicholas Ray’s They Live by Night–among the most auspicious of feature-directing debuts–is coming out on Criterion. Come help us talk about these and more, 7 p.m. Friday, June 9, Scarecrow Video Screening Room, 5030 Roosevelt Way N.E. Still a bargain at $00.00.”